Breakdown of Kassinn vegur fjörutíu og fimm kíló.
og
and
fimm
five
kassinn
the box
fjörutíu
forty
vega
to weigh
kílóið
the kilo
Questions & Answers about Kassinn vegur fjörutíu og fimm kíló.
How do compound numbers like 45 work in Icelandic? Do the tens change their endings?
To make compound numbers, you connect the tens and units with og (and), so 45 is literally forty and five (fjörutíu og fimm). Just like tuttugu (20), words for multiples of ten like fjörutíu never change their endings to match gender or case.
Does the word fimm change depending on the gender of kíló?
No. In Icelandic, only the numbers 1 through 4 change to match the gender and case of the noun they count. From 5 onwards, the number stays exactly the same, so fimm does not change here.
Since the box weighs 45 kilos, why doesn't the word kíló have a plural ending?
The word kíló is a neuter noun. A handy rule in Icelandic is that neuter nouns with no special ending in the singular look exactly the same in the plural when used in the nominative or accusative cases. So, one kilo is eitt kíló, and 45 kilos is fjörutíu og fimm kíló.
I remember learning that vegur means road. Why is it used here?
They are spelled identically, but they are completely different words. Here, vegur is the verb vega (to weigh) conjugated for the box. You just have to rely on the sentence context to tell the verb apart from the noun for road.
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